Sure, it's on Oak, you would say. But which side? And how bad can it be?

Further investigation - a drive-by, or simply using Streetview - would reveal that this home actually had a triple-whammy of a location issue, a combo that is hard to match.

Not only is it on Oak. Not only is it on the "wrong" (commercial) side of Oak.

It's also running along Marine Ave. (the angle from the first photo above), at a spot where traffic routinely backs up for the light at Sepulveda.

And unlike some lucky spots along Oak, this one gets nearly full impact from Sepulveda. Small saving grace: a 2-story office building right next door may buffer some traffic noise. But the home is on the same level as Sepulveda and there's not much avoiding all its effects.

OK, so that might have made the listing a bit of a letdown.

Yes, you could live west of Sepulveda for only $1.5M, but not very far west of Sepulveda, and only in trying circumstances.

A lot of home buyers moved on, looking for greener pastures.

But the sellers intended to sell.

Not a lot of Tree Section listings this year have run longer than the 137 DOM that 2500 Oak hit before making a deal. (To be specific, 8 listings out of 133 have run longer.)

And few, if any, have taken almost 20% off to sell.

But that's what went down at 2500 Oak.

When a buyer knocked, the sellers didn't fumble the opportunity.

They still had the property up at $1.499M, but the buyer said, "No, thanks, how about... less? Quite a bit less?"

And they made the deal for $1.300M, in a sale that has just closed this week.

That was a $200K drop from the active list price and 19% drop from the start.

This phrase keeps coming back to mind, for some reason: The sellers didn't fumble the opportunity. So bravo to them. And the buyers didn't overreach, just because the sellers were asking too much.

There is a price for every house, even one at the unique intersection of Marine/Oak/Sepulveda. (There isn't another quite like it: A commercial parking lot is across Marine on the equivalent corner.)

For this home, recently a rental property (and perhaps again!), that price was $1.300M.

It's the second-lowest sold price in the Trees in 2017 for a home with a 4400+ sqft. lot. Only two much smaller Rosecrans homes with smaller lots sold for less.

The only Tree Section 4400+ lot home sale lower this year was another Marine-impacted cottage, 2416 Pine (1/3rd smaller house) at $1.250M in January.

Curiously, that same house, yes, 2416 Pine, came back out for resale in the same condition asking $1.549M and is now under contract.

Perhaps the January sale was a theft or a fluke, and the value rose 25% after?